The Following is my basic and UNEDITED account of Mass Effect 3 Ending, as seen by me during the 3 hour night session. For interested parties, I played on casual for story. I’ll probably replay ME1 and ME2 now without worrying about casual or normal and/or play them on Xbox360 (most likely) just to stream them. <_<;;;

Seriously, if you don’t want spoilers. Don’t read this.

Raiding the Cerebus wasn’t the first step. That was realizing this whole game was against me from the moment I picked up the controller. You haven’t played a Mass Effect game before? Let’s ruin that by making you die twenty times in the opening sequence (slight exaggeration).

It starts raiding the Cerebus base: a space station that could dock an abnormal amount of ships in order to figure out how to stop the Reapers with the missing piece known only as the “Catalyst.” This Catalyst has been heavy-handed throughout the game. The only I knew going in was that “Shepard” would end up becoming the Catalyst. Okay, let’s start this.

Raid base. Kill Kai Leng. Get information. The Citadel, the entire galactic peace center, is actually Reaper tech not Prothean tech and is used as the Catalyst. Like okay, sure! Hackett, your commanding officer, comes on the com.

“Shepard, the Reapers have taken the Citadel to Earth. They’re protecting it. Heavily guarded.” Etc… Etc….

Okay. Let’s fly to Earth, people! We aren’t 100% ready. Because you know, who would be? & I want to finish the game, not run around the galaxy getting war assets. . . //as I should have done to be done with this!!!! Because now I want to play it again….sighs heavily, okay.// You get dropped into Earth’s orbit on a shuttle with James and Garrus, because that’s who you’ve chosen. James is a human. He can’t believe the state Earth is in. Per usual, you’re in London. Because what doesn’t happen in London?

Definitely Doctor Who.

Your shuttle pilot dies. Your shooting down Reapers left and right like the game doesn’t have an easy mode. You actually have to use a medi-gel. For the first time. What! No one’s coming. You radio in over and over. The only mission text reads: Survive.

Great.

A shuttle finally arrives. Anderson! Your other commanding officer leading the resistance on Earth. He has a great plan, a great plan, that involves you running head first at the enemy with tanks and lots of troops through crowded buildings crawling with reapers at the obvious connection point the Reapers want to keep safe at all costs. It’ll be a One Way Trip for most. #all But it’ll be the only chance we’ve got a stopping the Reapers. So let’s roll a d20 and just hope that we can ram through the forces.

Yeah. It was a “great “plan.

As you power your way through the Reaper forces, you trade Garrus for Liara, due to her biotic ability and regret your decision immediately. Liara’s great. But she’s just cannon fodder for the swarm of troops. James is off leading troops, and you’ve got EDI by your side, so Garrus can lead the Turians. This is obviously head canon. I have no idea what James and Garrus do when you don’t have them in your squad. But seriously, they aren’t having tea. She may be synthetic, but she’s incredible. She hacks the system by linking it with the Normandy (which she technically is; the body is a remote form) and linked the missiles to take down a Reaper Queen.

I don’t know what they’re really called. They’re just leading the other Reapers and killing you with the bright red lights.

Next time, you want to leave EDI on the Normandy to be with Jeff. They’re perfect for each other. She’ll come down to Earth anyway. You know that it won’t matter. You’ll bring her again.

Only this time, you’ll take Garrus instead. God, you wish you had him or James for their shields and complete annihilation with gunshots.

EDI’s linked the missiles. Fire. Fire! No literally, hit that red-bracketed command key known as “x.” Otherwise, you’ll just keep getting mauled by Reaper troops. Oh, okay. Smashes “X.” Yes! The Queen is destroyed. Anderson returns. Now it’s for the real plan. Running at the beam of light like your life depends on it.

Another queen appears. The giant red beam of doom continues to beleaguer your troops. Your dodge rolling and zig-zagging to keep from hitting you. You don’t know if your squad is following you, but they have to be. It’s in their AI.

Everyone dies.

Shepard. She has a pistol she picked up off the ground. It looks like a Hornet, but you don’t really care. One hand on a stomach wound. Another holding the gun to kill a random Marauder. You don’t even have a health bar.

You know you’re dying.

The beam of light swallows you. Anderson, is that you on the com link? Where am I? You’re in a chasm? I’m surrounded by dead bodies in a room of red light. The walls are moving. That’s….so Hogwarts. There’s a Keeper here. That species that doesn’t speak, but just kinda runs the Citadel on its own? The synthetic creature….which, now, obviously, we should all know is a REAPER that’s been “helping” the Citadel for centuries. ????!!! Yeah, Shepard doesn’t mention it to Anderson. She’s thinking it though. She’s thinking about it long and hard as it takes her five bloody minutes just to move towards the wall. That moves.

Hogwarts.

The chasm appears. Anderson, stop moving and wait for me. Don’t touch the console. Don’t do it! You’re not as main of a character as you should be! Anderson!!!

You walk up the steps. It takes 2 minutes and 15 seconds. You didn’t count, but boy, you know it took that long. The Illusive Man is back. His eyes are blue tinged with synthetic AI and his skin is overlaid with the black taint of Reaper control. He’s been controlled by them forever. You tell him so. He holds you back with his Reaper magic, I mean, technology. Technology that he put inside your body last game ago. It doesn’t matter, Illusive Man. I have a red R1 action key with YOUR name on it and BAM! that ended quickly.

Anderson, Anderson. Are you okay? What’s up. Don’t die.

“It’s beautiful isn’t it?”

Yes, Anderson. We have the best seats in the house.

“It was an honor serving with you, Shepard. To see you, the Council together, I am so proud of you.”

Death.

Well, look at Earth. Something will happen. The real End Game will start…

“Shepard, Shepard are you there?”

Hacket? What do you need me to do?

“The Crucible. It isn’t doing anything.”

What. I— there’s a hole in my stomach, oh goddess…wait, I’ll just scramble for this control panel that obviously looks in a different language I don’t speak. I can’t see anyth—

Shepard falls to the floor. Her maroon purple hair covering her blood-drenched face. The floor is actually a magical, I mean, technical staircase into the ceiling! Horrah! Right? Shepard is lifted to the roof of the Crucible, where she sees the little boy that’s been in her dreams the whole game, the little boy she “tried to save” in the beginning in the air vent, the little boy that has been pissing her off (me off) the entire game because little boys don’t deserve the dream-foreshadowing the game blasted me with at every corner.

“I am the Reapers.”

Of course you are, you little hoodie wearing rascal of course you are. Now tell me what the hell you.

“Rant. Rant. Cycle. Rant.”

No. Cycles are stupid. You think organic and synthetic life can’t live together? EDI proves this. The Geth prove this. What is wrong with you?”

“We bring Order to the Chaos. You will cause war. We leave your world intact. That is enough.”

No. Give us a chance. Rant.

“I can’t do it.”

What?

“But you can. You can do what you wanted to do.” The red-coated machine with a picture of Anderson. Shows blowing up and shit. “You can destroy the Reapers, and all synthetic life, and all Reaper code, with it. Including the Geth.”

A picture of the Illusive Man, and his attempt at putting his arms into painful lighting spikes. This is the blue side. “Or you can try and control us.”

The Illusive Man was right?

“Yes, but he was already controlled by us, and therefore, could not succeed.”

“But I could.”

“Yes. You could. The Reapers would be under your control, but [for some unknown gameplay reason, because this is what Bioware does to you] the Mass Relays [intergalactic transport systems] will be destroyed in the process.”

Why? Why? And does synthetic life mean EDI?

“The paths are before you. All you have to do is choose.”

Shepard lopes forward. What! I didn’t get my best Quarian friend Tali killed just so I could save the Geth and then destroy them. I didn’t hook Jeff up with an AI just to KILL HER. I didn’t make her “feel alive more than ever before” just to take away her body and destroy her hopes and dreams of ever being real. I guess she’s still technically a ship, but her AI has Reaper code in it. She was built by Cerebus. She’s living—well, synthetic—proof of the whole AI thing.

But the Reapers. I’ve come this whole game wanting to destroy the Reapers only having you tell me that I don’t have to because they aren’t the problem, our stupid morals are?

Well, you have a point. And I hate you. And I’m doing this whole “Control” thing because no way am I killing EDI. Or controlling EDI, which won’t happen because she was actually a Luna AI before becoming EDI.

Whatever.

Shepard places her hands on the same lighting rods, with the little blasted “boy” behind her. She thinks of Jeff—and rightly so he’s pretty awesome!!! You go dude.—and Anderson, also pretty badass—and then Liara—totally a whimp, but nice about it, and not Garrus enough for my tastes, but this is what I get for “romancing” a character just to have a romance cutscene I watch with my eyes closed because I don’t even like them. I’m a dork, give me best friends next time.

She has faith. She musters up the courage, and erupts as Reaper code infects her body. She dissipates into Reaper specks of blackness. The Reapers and Alliance fight on Earth. The Reapers are red, fighting, and then, blue, light blue. Shepard colors. They take off into the space of who-knows-where. The crucible blasts out a blue beam of Shepard. Jeff frantically flies the Normandy away from it. Somehow, he can tell he needs to get the crew, and potentially EDI, out of harms’ way. The Normandy, if you remember, was built with Reaper tech. Destroying the Reapers, destroys the ship. Not on Jeff’s watch.

Jeff makes it. Panicked. He crashes on a planet of tropical fern leaves and sand. The door swings open.

End credits.

Blink. Blink Blink.

This font is so space heavy. Sister comes in. Explain the consequence of your action. “But it doesn’t practically matter because you’re dead, right? So to you, your character, it isn’t important.”

Well yes, my Shepard is dead. But what if she wasn’t? What if she was just synthesized with the Reaper code and now becomes like EDI, a synthetic controller herself?! From Jeff’s actions, it looks like EDI probably died. And now with the Mass Relays gone. He couldn’t get to her body even if he wanted to!! He’s out of the Sol system. EDI’s body probably didn’t even make it from the red beam of light anyway! She’s probably all the ship now. Damn. I probably just controlled the Reapers for nothing. And now, the entirety of the Geth, a synthetic life form, is totally STUCK in the Sol system, which I guess, is kinda cool. They could live on Saturn. No, okay, no. Everyone is dead, and I’m maybe, stuck in some Reaper code form, which could make COMMUNE with the ship and live like EDI???

So wait, would EDI and I be in the same ship, if I’m the source Reaper code now. In further reflections, I realize how cool this in actuality. Destroying the mass relays. I completely forgot when I chose. It’s such a step back. It shows that lack of faith in organic and inorganic life matter, and what is “inorganic” anyway, I mean they are carbon-based, technically, if they’re made of—okay, focus.

I literally chose the Control ending because (1) EDI, (2) Guilt for killing Tali, and (3) knowing that I would have chosen to destroy the Reapers had this Shepard not literally witnessed the death of every single person she touched & the Krogan would definitely use the Mass Relays to start another war.

It doesn’t matter. I’m going back. I playing again. Maybe. I’m watching the secret perfect ending or whatever. This time, I’m going to remember the Mass Relays. It’s such a “step back,” to not have them. I’m going to get the War Assets. I have three save files now, which means I’ll “end” again with 6. At least, I’m going to watch the Youtube video now.